An article entitled, the Neigh-Neigh Sisterhood in Natural History magazine explains how female friendships help wild mares cope.

Writer Stephan Reebs says,

Wild mares that form strong social bonds with other mares produce more foals than those that don’t, researchers have found, in what may be the first documented link between “friendship” and reproductive success outside of primates.

The three-year study followed several bands of feral horses in the Kaimanawa Mountains of New Zealand. Elissa Z. Cameron, now at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, and two colleagues computed sociality scores for fifty-six mares.

Sociality? How is this measured? They chose parameters such as the proportion of time each animal spent near other mares and the amount of social grooming she did. Cameron et.al. found that the scores correlated well with foaling rate: more sociable mares had more foals and also suffered slightly less harassment by the bands’ few males.

Correlational studies are difficult to interpret, and do not prove cause and effect, but they are a start. These data are consistent with the idea that bonds between females—even unrelated ones, as in horse bands—help them fend off pestering males, thus reducing stress and promoting healthy pregnancies.

Note: They shouldn’t need a study of horses to know that bonds between females help them fend off pestering males! Ever been to a club or bar?

I miss a few of my longtime readers and commenters. I suspect I know the reason for your recent absence, and I do not blame you one little bit. EHTT is NOT a “cause” blog. EHTT is an exploration blog. A thinking blog. A wondering blog.

One of the best things about blogging is the community of friends and mutual commenters we have going. It’s the only way to see what’s going on out there other than random clicking, and who has time for that? If you went away because you were tired of being clobbered over the head with a recent cause, It’s OVER. Come back. I’ve missed you. That’s not to say that I don’t already adore my new readers. I do. Adore you. Welcome. Speak out when it moves you.

This has been a busy month at Tellington TTouch, and so there has been little time to write and learn on my own. In March, look for more on oxytocin, the horsmone that governs touch and social bonding between horses and humans, and at also, the debut of Tuesday’s Touch.

A recap of thoughts this month.

The Hormone Oxytocin and Touch published on February 7 in Horses, Touch, and Science.

Affirmations For Horsepeople: Live in the Present Moment published on February 9 in Affirmations of Awareness, Mindfulness, Horses, and Horsemanship.

Multitasking Is Not Your Friend published on February 18 in Buddhism, Equine Intellect & Behavior, Mindfulness and Science.

If you were reading last month and had a favorite I didn’t list here, please let me know. For that matter, if you think these posts were no good at all and you’d rather see others (or none at all) in a month-end summary, say that, too!

If it pleases you, I’d like to see a link to your favorite posts from your own blogs, if you write them. Spread the love!

I got the idea for this post from the blog at Beliefnet and from falling while walking Rubydog. How did this happen? Simply put, I wasn’t paying attention. In comments on Live In the Present Moment we’ve been discussing quality of attention and how it affects riding and our lives, and I failed to practice what I preach.

As Rubydog and I rounded a corner on our way home from our morning walk/jog, I waved to the construction workers who are adding the new lanais on our complex, and put a foot wrong. I fell with a comically spectacular splat, removing skin and flesh from a large portion of my elderly knee. Ouch. Hilarity and gushing of blood ensued. Road rash in Hawaii has a particularly jagged quality because of the lava.

In truth, I was not paying attention. I was multi-tasking. I was thinking of my daughter, watching the rare two cars that were passing, and anticipating the greetings of the workers. Most folks would say this isn’t too much. That’s not multitasking! But it was. Look what happened.

Have you ever found yourself talking on the phone while walking down the street, while drinking a cup of coffee, making a mental shopping list, and getting your keys ready to open your front door?
What about talking on the phone while looking at your email, admiring a new car in a tv commercial?
Wouldn’t want to miss anything!
How about when we’re talking to a good friend and furtively glance at our Blackberry? Media guru Renny Gleeson says that what we’re really saying is, “you are not as important as literally almost anything that could come to me through this device.”
Ram Dass said it well, forty years ago: Be Here Now.
But we all try and multitask to some degree. Well, most of us. Here’s Thich Nhat Hanh on the topic:
“When I drink a glass of water, I invest one hundred percent of myself in drinking it. You should train yourself to live every moment of your daily life like that.”
I’m guessing Thay doesn’t have a Blackberry.
We often act as though multitasking is necessary, that to be successful in this frenetic world requires us to juggle hyperkinetically, never letting our attention rest on one thing for more than a fraction of a second. We’re given tips on how to do it better, and gadgets that make it easier. One of the biggest complaints people seem to have about the new iPad is its inability to multitask.

Driving, for sure, takes a lot of concentration. We all wish we could shout, “Get off the phone and drive!” now and again. In Hawaii, it’s illegal to use a cellphone in the driver’s seat. But the rest of the time, wouldn’t you think multitasking was OK?

Neuroscientist Gary Aston-Jones, Ph.D said in a recent CNN.com article, says there may be a cost associated with becoming an expert multitasker, saying it “may ‘lower the threshold of distractibility,’ possibly harming the ability to do tasks that require intense sustained focus, such as art, science, and writing.”

What humans can do, Millier said, is shift our focus from one thing to the next with lightning speed. This is very different from the way the mind and perceptual system of horses work. As we switch from attentive task to task, we fool ourselves into thinking we are paying attention to everything around us at the same time. But it is really sequential. Horses, unlike humans, perceive the reality around them in a diffuse way, for which they are sometimes punished. I wrote about this in Do You Demand Your Horse’s Complete Attention? and then it was discussed with great alacrity at Glenshee Equestrian Center.

The problem with multitasking is so very simple. Changing our minds is not. If we choose too many objects to give our attention to, we cannot deepen our familiarity, our friendliness, with any of them. Our minds cannot immerse themselves in each object’s arena beyond superficiality. It’s like glancing instead of examining.

Here’s where mindfulness practice can come in handy. Rather than acting as mental dilettantes and leaping from one task to another, if we allow our minds to fully occupy one object at a time, we can assemble a coherent theme. There is great comfort in this, and for those who practice it, greater productivity, connection to their inner worlds as well as to those in the outside world.

Resting with open attention on any object (by object I mean thought, thing, process, etc.) activates the innate human intelligence that is bypassed in multitasking. Deeper comprehension and familiarity allow greater effectiveness and insight. I suspect I don’t have to tell you this after you have tried thirty times to jump the same combination successfully. If you tried it the first ten times while mentally complaining your grocery list and the next two times while predcting that your horse was going to veer to the left after the second jump, your failure was practically guaranteed. Once your focus was fully on the process, however, and you held in your mind the picture of success (much like the visualization process of sports psychology), banishing all ideas of what might go wrong, you did it! Success!

Some of us, while looking at a piece of carrot, can see the whole cosmos in it, can see the sunshine in it, can see the earth in it. It has come from the whole cosmos for our nourishment. You may like to smile to it before you put it in your mouth. When you chew it, you are aware that you are chewing a piece of carrot. Don’t put anything else into your mouth, like your projects, your worries, your fear, just put the carrot in. And when you chew, chew only the carrot, not your projects or your ideas. You are capable of living in the present moment, in the here and the now. It is simple, but you need some training to just enjoy the piece of carrot. This is a miracle.

–Thich Nhat Hanh

Chögyam Trungpa way back in 1976, reminded me that I should not walk and think at the same time:

Meditation is working with our speed, our restlessness, our constant busyness. Meditation provides space or ground in which restlessness might function, might have room to be restless, might relax by being restless. If we do not interfere with restlessness, then restlessness becomes part of the space. We do not control or attack the desire to catch our next tail.

I come back to it again and again, much as Bonnitta does when exploring the left, the right, in order to find the middle: “Oops, Thinking! Let go of that thought. Focus on now.”

As Buddhists say so often:

When walking, just walk.

When riding, just ride.

Exploring how people and animals bond–and why it makes you healthier and happier by Meg Daley Olmert on PsychologyToday.com. Read the entire article here.

This is a really interesting article on what makes the human-animal bond tick, from the biological perspective. Socially and emotionally speaking, I have a few bones to pick with Olmert about the nature of horses, however. I don’t think that horses’ acceptance of Rowan was remarkable. I think it was standard operating procedure. That is what is so remarkable about animals, but their acceptance in and of itself is not remarkable. Horses did not help make Rowan human. Rowan was already human, for heaven’s sake. What a dreadful thing to say. Perhaps Olmert was trying to echo Temple Grandin’s statement, “Animals Make us Human,” but this is not an acceptable trope. Horses may have triggered the growth that made Rowan a more socially acceptable, communicative, content and functional human. I think that’s what she means, anyway, as she leads up to a description of the wonder hormone, oxytocin, and its role as the foundation of social bonding, touch.

oxytocin

What is it about animals that inspires the mute to speak, make wild children mild, protects our hearts from the ravages of stress, and our fills our minds with a sense of wellbeing? These dramatic therapeutic effects are built on physiological changes such as lowered heart rate, blood pressure, and stress hormone levels. I wanted to know what biological mechanisms are triggered by animals that can make us healthier, happier, and more socially competent.

Emerging research has shown that there is a distinct biology behind social bonding (both human-human and human-animal). Brain chemicals previously thought to control such narrowly defined functions as lactation and labor have been found to contribute to a wide variety of human social bonding functions. The neurohormone oxytocin, also known as the touch hormone, has been found to be responsible for triggering the cascade of biological events that govern behaviors from monogamous bonding to breeding, maternal care, and satisfaction in close contact with a loved one, male or female. Olmert reports, “Even unsociable male rats will act friendly when treated with oxytocin and it also helps these rodents remember their new friends.”

For the purposes of both Rowan and his beloved horse Betsy, as well as humans and horses in general, it is fascinating to learn that high levels of oxytocin are linked to increased calm and nurturing behaviors. Oxytocin treatments for men have a host of benefits: they look longer into another’s eyes and are able to detect more subtle meaning in them. As with rodents, our social memory can be improved with oxytocin treatments.

I’m not advocating oxytocin supplements here. Just introducing the very basic qualities of this neurohormone that governs bonding and touch.

Oxytocin helps us make social connections in much the same way it does in other animals. It quiets the fear circuitry in our brains so that we don’t automatically see everyone and everything as a threat. With our fight/flight reflex in check we are able to detect even the faintest glimmer of benign or friendly intention. And such positive social signals trigger a further release of oxytocin that encourages us to approach and interact with each other in cooperative and nurturing ways.

…fortunately, horses are even more social and visual than us, which may explain why the lead mare was able to see in this writhing boy’s eager eyes a deep desire to attach. She did not fight this strange boy or flee from him, but instead accepted him. And when Rowan began to ride her, the rhythmic, repetitive motion stimulated his pelvic nerves in ways that are known to release oxytocin. Certainly, Rowan’s behavioral transformation signaled a rise in oxytocin. His repetitive gestures stopped and he began to communicate. Oxytocin treatment has been shown to reduce hand-flapping and verbal tics in autistic patients and improve their ability to comprehend non verbal communication, like the emotional meaning in a tone of voice.

The other wonderful thing about oxytocin is that the positive social encounters it encourages also causes it to be released in both parties-whether they are human or animal. This means oxytocin can create and sustain a social feedback system that knows no species boundaries. This is why we are not imagining the mental and physical sense of wellbeing we feel when we connect with animals. It’s also why a horse can see the good in a boy and help him see the good in himself and others. As I explained in an earlier post, this shared neurobiological heritage is what created the human/horse partnership that proved to an evolutionary win/win. Apparently there are still some journeys only horses can take us on.

I’m looking forward to talking more about this hormone, oxytocin and its profound implications for touch and horses. Look for more soon.

From the Metta Center, a statement by my favorite neuroscientist and all-around Renaissance man, V.S. Ramachandran,

There is no real independent self aloof from other human beings, inspecting the world and inspecting other people; you are in fact connected…quite literally connected by your neurons…and there is no real distinctiveness of your consciousness from someone else’s consciousness. This emerges from an understanding of basic neuroscience.

Harm or violence can be defined as “coercive action based on an illusion of separateness, or the inability to recognize oneself in the other.”

How much of horse training and horseback riding involves coercive action, albeit what we think of as kind coercion? You can’t do much with a horse without, well, getting him to do something you want him to do. Whether or not you “make it his idea,” it’s coercion. I’m not equating coercion in horsemanship with violence and harm, though it seems that way from what I’ve written thus far.

I’m trying to delineate those two ideas, if possible. Radical animal rights activists will say that no delineation is possible. these are the people who advocate not keeping pets, etc. because it’s demeaning and abusive to them and an unnatural state. I see their point, but in my humble opinion, it’s not realistic in today’s world. If you choose not to have a pet based on this assumption, that’s great. It does not solve the companion animal population crisis overnight, nor does it address the issue of where the breeds came from in the first place. They are here to stay unless there’s a mass extermination, and I don’t think they want that. I merely want to think about the ways in which we interact with these animals, and to examine the core principles that inform our common activities.

If our core value is not compassion, loving kindness, and the will to do no harm (in short–met(t)a horsemanship), then we delude ourselves. Minute failures in metta, coercion without kindness, amount to violence against our horses. When we do violence to another, we do violence to ourselves. As V.S. Ramachandran states above, there is no duality–the Golden Rule, Do Unto Others As You Would Have Others Do Unto You–is not just an aphorism, but a necessity for living as a human being. We are all one being.

To go one step further, watching another doing violence (read: in the media, TV, video games, in our family relationships and in our relations to animals), we also experience that violence ourselves. Remember how you felt the last time you witness something unpleasant occur between two beings. See what I mean? Mirror Neurons virtually guarnatee that we experience this kind of empathetic response, because violence is based on an illusion of our separateness. Itt affects us all as interconnected beings.

Unfortunately, we can raise our tolerance to violence and even our ignorance of its existence by taking more of it in. You’ve watched horse training videos or presentations in which there was great violence against the horse, cloaked in modern training-speak and perpetrated by charming media-savvy stars. I’m willing to bet that, like me, you’ve come to realize that methods you accepted in the past are not compassionate, as and such do not recognize the inherent oneness of the human and horse. You have resolved to find a better way.

Nonviolence is a force that reveals itself via an ability to see ourselves in the other, a realization of the non-separation between ourselves and those around us. Research on mirror neurons … can help us to begin to understand the science behind this interrelationship between ourselves, other beings, violence, and nonviolence. This video, and the scientific paradigm of which it is a part, is worth watching, and worth developing.

I’m curious to know what you think. What are your opinions on the subject? With posts like this, have I gone off the deep end? Addressing the foundations of horsemanship or strayed too far?

See also, Sage by Nature: Horses Drawing Out Our Goddess Force

We really are all ONE.

This came to me from the night sky (well, really my sister via email) after writing We Are All Made of Stars. Watch this amazing video

We are made of star stuff. We have travelled this way before and there is much to be learned.

The true meaning of the much overuse word, awe asserts istelf when I consider that we have about a teaspoon-full of star matter from 13 billion years ago in our bodies today.

Though individual humans are infinitesimal in the grand scheme of things, we are one with whatever that scheme is.

Visit Symphony of Science for more cool stuff

When researching another post recently, I found the following site: The Virtual Radiography of the Horse.

This is pretty interesting. In it you will find information to compare with what your vet reports to you about your horse and what s(he)shows you:
radiographic technique
normal radiographs
3D virtual radiographs
3D bone reconstructions from CT scans.

All you do is click on an area of interest from the horse photo on the landing page to begin.

From Holistic Horse: Can Horses get the Flu? by Kim Henneman, DVM

(Read the rest here at Holistic Horse)

SO, CAN HORSES GET SWINE FLU?

Probably not, said Tom Chambers, PhD, who heads the OIE Reference Laboratory for Equine Influenza at the University of Kentucky’s Gluck Equine Research Center in Lexington.

Influenza viruses have an amazing ability to mutate and change their characteristics, so scientists who study them never say “never.” But, while it’s perhaps not impossible for a horse to get swine influenza, Chambers said he thinks it’s unlikely.

“Swine flu in humans is not novel,” Chambers said. “Swine flu in horses would definitely be novel.”

Horses can and do get equine influenza, which is one of the most common causes of upper respiratory disease in horses. It is highly contagious, and horses can spread flu virus from direct contact or coughing. To learn more, watch the Webinar “Understanding Equine Influenza.”

See the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more information on swine flu.

See this article, written by Erin Ryder, News Editor for TheHorse.com at TheHorse.com

You clip the lunge line to his face and send him away. A flick of the whip or the rope and off he goes. Short time, long time, whatever, he walks, trots or canters in a circle. Your purpose for this exercise is clear in your mind: exercise, smooth transitions, an attempt at calming, lameness detection, etc. His understanding of the point of lungeing? ZERO.

Mounted or on the ground, you tug gently on the lead rope in the direction of his withers to ask for flexion to the left and then to the right. You practice this each and every time before you ride. Sometimes it’s a part of all the groundwork you do each day. A routine. It’s good horsemanship. You have a clear intention of what you want to achieve: a quick and soft yield of the head. Your horse’s attention. You have his attention al lright. But do you know what is in his mind? I wonder if it’s this:

I learned what you want in this flexion thing in a few tries. I don’t understand why I have to do it over and over. It’s boring. If we don’t do something new pretty soon, I’m going to find something else on my own. Oh hey, look what I can do…!

Serpentines.

Backing up on the ground.

20 meter circles at the walk and trot.

Lead changes.

Trotting over cavaletti.

Sliding stops and spins.

Most of what we ask our horses to do on a daily basis is not as inherently harmful as dressage practice with rollkur. Yielding the head and trotting in 20 meter circles can’t physically hurt a horse unless he has health problems or injuries.

It can be harmful in other ways, however, as Frédéric Pignon says,

What people do not appreciate is that every time a horse submits to pressure, whether subtle or overt, he is diminished. Probably the great majority of people who achieve their own ends by making their horse submit are not even aware of what they have done. It is a sad fact that a horse can be made to do many things by breaking his will. If he can be persuaded to give his assent freely and pleasurably rather than give into man’s pressure or clever techniques, he is not diminished.

In Do We Really Know What We Do?, I posted the quote above also. I don’t believe we can contemplate what Frédéric was telling us enough. Horses who cannot find meaning in what they do are sour. They “misbehave.” They go lame. What we often do not realize is that it’s our fault.

Each and every time we as ordinary riders, just like the stars of the horse world, ask our horses to repeat an action they have already learned, or to do something contrary to their nature as horses, we are asking for a kind of submission, “making” him do things that make no sense to him. Most of horseback riding is not natural to horses, to be sure.
Horseback riding and training require a certain amount of repetition. This is irrefutable. But how much is enough? How can we be sure that our horses’ activities have clear and valid meaning for them?

One way is to change the way in which they are rewarded for producing the desired behavior. The pleasure of spending time with us is a reward for social animals like horses. We don’t always have time, but making time within our riding and training schedules to add a few extra moments of just being together with no goal in mind, and using this as a reward/positive reinforcement adds meaning to the tasks we ask horses to do.

Another way is to increase the amount of physical contact we have with our horses. Not the kind with the whip or with the leg. The kind where you both are on the ground and your hands are on the horse. Touch is a miracle communicator because horses are sensory creatures. Like us, touch in equine life is an important part of the establishment of social hierarchies and family interaction. The reward of human touch is powerful for such tactile animals. You’ve seen a horse with a metaphorical sign reading, “will work for food,” but most of them also will work for touch.

Do what comes naturally to your horse. An Icelandic Horse is bred for moving out across country. Their minds are not suited to riding in circles in arenas. If you are going to ask them to work in confined spaces at tasks they don’t inherently understand, make sure they get to do what they do understand, on a daily basis. Ride out, at speed!
Likewise, a Percheron is not built for, nor does he have the mindset for, the rapid changes in tempo and rhythm of dressage. Don’t even try it! I’m not suggesting that owners of Percherons take up hauling logs instead of riding. But perhaps long rides in the country are a better option for the health and sanity of the horse.
The much-abused Thoroughbred also comes to mind. OTTBs just aren’t constitutionally suited to a great many of the jobs we give them. Sure, they are in plentiful supply. They are inexpensive and easily replaceable. But consider suitability for your desired activity first. And if it’s just impossible to match breed to discipline, make sure you keep in mind my suggestions above for keeping your horse sane: avoid mindless repetition of meaningless tasks, give plenty of downtime in your company, and make sure to touch touch touch! I have one further suggestion for helping your horse find meaning in his working life.

The best way to ensure that horses find meaning in what they do is to change things up. On a routine basis. Yes, we will have to put considerable thought into this.

Non-habitual movements, like those described by Moshe Feldenkrais, capture the horse’s attention in a way that habitual actions do not. When practiced in a relaxed atmosphere without provoking typical fear responses, any new activity involving all four feet, the head or tail, or the back or belly engages the horse’s mind in a new way. Expanding the horse’s body image through new and different (non-habitual) movement sequences brings attention to parts of his body he might not be fully aware of (we all know those horses who forget they have hind feet and leave them parked out, for example). Asking a horse to do new things allows you to become more aware of their habitual neuromuscular patterns and rigidities as well because you are seeing them in a new way. You can then expand his options for new ways of moving and living his life more fully and comfortably, not to mention with greater ease of performance.

The Tellington TTouch Method™ has a variety of ground work and ridden exercises called the Playground for Higher Learning . Through brainwave studies, it has been shown that working on the activities in the Playground activates both hemispheres of the equine brain and calms the sympathetic nervous system, the part that excites the flight reaction so common in horses when they don’t understand what is being asked of them. The opportunities for learning are increased greatly. It is interesting to note that when navigating corners in the labyrinth, a horse’s BETA brainwaves are activated. They are actually thinking logically while working in the Playground for higher learning.

Why get excited about a horse thinking? When lungeing or repeating the activities we might need endless practice at, horses turn off their brains. They get sour and sometimes they get angry. A sour, angry horse who is merely becoming fitter as a result of all this mindless exercise is not the horse we want. This does them a profound disservice and does not further our goals.

Guiding a horse deliberately and gently through non-habitual paths while in close physical contact is the very essence of mindful horsemanship. The bonus is that it’s fun!

It’s easy to make any of the items in the Playground for Higher Learning. You can use the stuff you have lying around the barn or purchase it cheaply. It’s not heavy and can be set up and then moved out of the way to ride by one person in minutes. Here are some examples of what you might want to include.

The Zig Zag

The Tractor Tire

The Labyrinth

The Fan, or Star

The Triangle

These tools are not your typical obstacle course. They are not intended to be negotiated at speed, or as objects for desensitization. Rather the object is to practice focus and self-control, and to increase flexibility, body awareness, balance, coordination, and confidence. Increased patience is a wonderful side effect of working in the Playground. You can immediately see the benefits of working youngsters here.

It is beyond the scope of this post to describe how to use each of these obstacles. I suggest that you visit the Tellington TTouch website to read about them in more detail or get a book or video. Better yet, take a training so that you can practice with a horse before trying yourself. The TTouch methods of leading a horse through these obstacles is an integral part of the exercises. Last week in Bodega Bay, California, horses worked in these obstacles, and on a plywood platform raised 6 inches off the ground, in addition to walking through a gradually-built path of straw bales with people standing on them, eventually holding bright pool noodles in an arch over the horse. I saw striking changes in these horses in a short time–just four days of work two hours a day. These horses ranged from a youngster aged three (not yet mounted) to an elder aged 23 (unrideable due to past neglect and possible abuse), to a Grand Prix dressage horse with impeccable training and manners.

Horses’ capacity for learning and engagement with their human handlers never ends. It is our responsibility to meet them more than halfway by providing the opportunity to do so.

I’m not suggesting that we all drop our favorite equestrian disciplines in favor of turning our horses out into a field and visiting them daily with a carrot, a massage and a turn in the Playground. Though that would be excellent. We have horses so we can do things with them. Balance is absolutely necessary. It takes skillful means to strike and hold that balance. It isn’t easy, and it takes more time than grabbing the horse from the stall or field, scraping off the dirt, slapping on tack and circling the arena 50 times.

Rather than seeking yields (submission), we might instead seek cooperation, fun and learning with these tools, which will allow us to pursue our personal horseback riding and training goals without completely eradicating the soul of the horse. In this, we can all learn from Frédéric Pignon and Linda Tellington-Jones, whose mutual goal is to uphold the sanctity of the horse.

Youth-centered education and interactive programs in science are not new. But equine presenters acting as figureheads for these programs are pretty unusual. The Rutgers University Equine Science Center in New Jersey is revamping its website with an interactive, youth-oriented component to coincide with the annual Equine Science Update on Tuesday, December 8, 2009. There Lord Nelson, a a 36-year old American Quarter Horse, will guide budding scientists and horse enthusiasts in learning equine science. I wonder exactly how he is going to do this.

We are pleased to present Lord Nelson as the ‘Professor Emeritus’ for our youth-centered website component. Lord Nelson has witnessed the development of the Equine Science Center and experienced over 20 years of Rutgers University history. I cannot think of a more qualified candidate to help teach budding scientists and young horse enthusiasts about equine science.

says Dr. Karyn Malinowski, director of the Equine Science Center.

Lord Nelson arrived at Rutgers University in 1978 where he worked first as a patrol horse in the university mounted police unit and later as the Scarlet Knights mascto at sporting events. Lord Nelson had quite a resume before retiring in 2000.

The online classroom will see Lord Nelson as the lead educator in interactive elements and games, though the major focus will be equine science for youth 10-13 years of age. Modules will include equine healthcare and nutrition, equine exercise and physiology, and horses and the environment. The first module in Lord Nelson’s lesson plan book will be the Scoop on Poop, a lesson about animal waste management and manure as an agricultural resource. I can just see it now: Lord Nelson chatting happily away with the aid of computer animation as he poops unselfconsciously in demonstration.

The annual Equine Science Update is open to the public for the purpose of presenting the center’s activities and initiatives, current research projects, and scientific work in advancing horse industry issues. Guests are invited to tour the Ryders Lane Farm, which includes meeting the current crop of weanlings in the Young Horse Teaching and Research Program, attending a high-speed equine treadmill demonstration, and enjoying supper at the Cook Campus Center.

Much of traditional horse training relies on negative reinforcement. I know I’m going to take some heat on that statement, but, well, come get me. The term, negative reinforcement does not by definition indicate dominance or stressful training. There, I’m covered. However, many trainers and riders intuitively feel that negative reinforcement can elicit dominance behaviors in trainers and induce stress in horses. They choose eliminate it from their programs, opting instead for positive reinforcement programs like Clicker Training.

We teach our horses a variety of tasks to gain their attention and trust and to teach them what they need to know to be our ideal partners. In natural horsemanship training circles, the ability to get your horse to walk calmly over a rippling, crinkly tarp is be a bomb-proofing feather in your horsemanship hat.

Heleski, Bauson, and Bello of the Department of Animal Science at Michigan State University in East Lansing did a study* to see whether the positive reinforcement people are wasting their time and the NH folks’ often more expedient methods work just as well.

This study tested the hypothesis that adding positive reinforcement (PR) to negative reinforcement (NR) would enhance learning in horses (n = 34) being taught to walk over a tarp (novel/typically frightening task).

Subjects were Arabians, and the same person handled all of them. This person handled half “traditionally” (NR only)–that is, halter/lead were pulled; when horse stepped forward, pressure was released; process repeated until criterion met (horse crossed the tarp with little/no obvious anxiety).

The same person handled the other half traditionally–but with addition of PR (NR + PR).

Subjects “failed” the task if they refused to walk onto the tarp after 10 min.

Nine horses failed; 6 of 9 failures were from NR only–no significant difference detected (p = .41). The study detected no difference in time to first crossing of the tarp (p = .30) or total time to achieve calmness criterion (p = .67). Overall, adding PR did not significantly enhance learning this task. However, there were practical implications–adding PR made the task safer/less fatiguing for the handler.

PubMed Abstract PMID: 18569217, indexed for MEDLINE, authored by Heleski C, Bauson L, Bello N.

These studies always seem to leave too may variables flapping in the breeze like tarps with blown grommets. The authors cite a single practical implication in favor of positive reinforcement: handler safety!

I’d like to know:
What was the positive reinforcement?
and
How the numbers would look if

a) a study’s standard of success were measured by some other parameter than initial learning speed; and
b) a study examined the effects of positive reinforcement as opposed to negative reinforcement rather than as an additive technique.

What else have I missed?

Related Post: If Scientists Use Positive Reinforcement Strategies to Study and Measure Equine Learning, Why Do Most Horsepeople Use Negative Reinforcement?

© 2009 enlightened horsemanship through touch and Kim Cox Carneal